A Funeral of Frost
by hanazaki462anime
Summary: How lonely would one have to be, now, to visit his own funeral? Bunnymund finds out the answer when he unwillingly intrudes on a certain winter spirit. Rated K plus because, well, it's a funeral. No pairings. If you see a pairing, then go ahead and see a pairing.


**A Funeral of Frost**

**A/N: Monday feeeeeeels. I feel angstyyyy and I don't like it. Luckily, I restrained myself and wrote Hurt/Comfort and not Angst. This is what you get when listening to "Town of Folsense" in the Professor Layton games on loop. Hope you enjoy this!**

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A Pooka by the name E. Aster Bunnymund was jumping from tunnel to tunnel on a particular night, in search of a annoying, infuriating winter spirit named Jack Frost.

"He's in for some big trouble," Bunny muttered, still wiping the remnants of pink dye off his ears. With a final _thump_, he hopped out of a tunnel leading to Jack's lake. Why he didn't think of that earlier, he couldn't remember. As the Easter Bunny made his way to the clearing, he saw a figure standing with his back to him, on the lake. "Jack!" Bunny called, but Jack didn't turn around, not hearing him, perhaps.

Just as he was about to yell his name louder, Jack cleared his throat and began in a comical voice. "Ladies and gentlemen..." He then scratched his head. Bunny could hear something like "Is that how it goes?" being muttered, and then the speech continued, in a more serious tone.

"We are here to commemorate the death of..." Jack paused, as if hesitating. This gave Bunny time to think. He was here to honor someone's death? Who would the winter spirit have known? As much as Bunny didn't like to admit it, Jack had been left alone for the past three hundred years. Before he could think deeper into the matter, Jack took a deep breath and continued;

"We are here to commemorate the death of Jackson Overland."

Bunny scratched his head. Jackson Overland? Who was that?

"Jackson Overland, known also as Jack to friends and family, drowned in this lake on this very day," Jack whispered, and Bunny only managed to catch it with his sensitive hearing. By now, Bunny had a theory, and a sinking feeling that he was right on said theory. Jackson Overland, known as Jack... Jack Frost, called Jack... It was too much of a coincidence that this Overland person drowned in the lake that the Jack Frost was born from.

Jack shuffled his feet and left his staff leaning on a nearby tree, surprising Bunny. After the battle with Pitch, the bringer of winter had almost never let it go. Well, Jack did now, nevertheless, and continued in a louder voice in which Bunny didn't have to strain to hear. "Jack had gone skating with his little sister on this day, three hundred years ago," he said, confirming Bunny's theory. "They were there to teach that little sister to skate. However, the ice was not thick enough. The ice under the girl cracked."

Bunny hesitated, only realizing then that this was a private matter. He didn't want to invade Jack's privacy, but he wanted to hear how Jackson Overland of three hundred years ago had turned into the Jack Frost of the present. In the end, he decided to stay.

"With this very shepherd's staff here," Jack turned his face sideways to look at the conduit of his power, and for a moment Bunny remained frozen, thinking Jack had also caught sight of him. He hadn't, however, and turned back to the imaginary audience and continued, "he saved his sister by playing hopscotch." The statement would have been funny if not for the deadpan voice it was said in.

"As he encouraged her not to be scared, she hopped to thinner ice, and on the last step to almost certain doom, her brother whisked her off the thin ice, onto safety." There was an uncanny smile on Jack's face, despite that this was, in fact, a funeral for himself. However, the smile slipped off as fast as Bunny on ice as he told the next part of his story. "The momentum slid Jack onto this spot here. This exact place I'm standing in front of now. His sister's life had cost him his life, and he fell in when the ice cracked. And drowned." Jack's voice was growing hoarse, and the last part was barely audible.

"Caring brother, proud son..." A choked, dry sob startled the Pooka. It wasn't the sound that had frightened him, but the fact that the sound had come from the ever-so-flippant _Jack Frost_. "Loyal f-friend, and cl-class clown..," Jack stuttered out, taking in a shuddering breath. He rubbed his arms through his frosted hoodie, seeming uncertain of what to do. Jack blinked and, with a movement of finality, left a flower made of ice on the spot in front of him. "We will always remember him," Jack whispered, and Bunny could hear the bitterness in his voice, and felt the guilt rush over him like all the lake water under that ice because they _hadn't_ remembered.

Deciding that the funeral was over, Jack backed away from the lake onto ground. On his third step, unfortunately, he tripped backwards on a misplaced rock. "Ahh!" Jack cried as he fell onto his back. For a moment, it was silent as he looked up. Not just up, Bunnymund realized, but up at the moon. He watched as Jack stood back up, with his hands clutched tightly over the accursed rock.

And all his anger just... just _spilled over,_ and Jack threw the rock at the lake, hating the lake, hating fate, hating the moon, hating _himself_. The rock, with all of Jack's snowball-throwing accuracy, hit right next to the flower of ice and broke the surface of the frozen water, plunging both itself and the creation deep into the murky depths of the lake.

And he cried. Cried for his sister, who he saved but left behind. Cried for his friends, who never saw him again. Cried for Jackson Overland, who was a thing of the past. Cried for Jack Frost, and all those days he was forgotten, for all those months he was ignored, for all those years he asked for his purpose, years he asked for the purpose of his life.

A furry paw latched onto his shoulder, and his face shot up, senses alert. Bunny stood beside him, looking down in concern and holding Jack's staff in his other hand. And then, without warning, Bunny pulled Jack into a warm hug. Jack made a sound that resembled something of a squeak, and there was a shocked, sharp intake of breath. At first, his first instinct was to fling himself away from the Guardian of Hope, but the child in him wanted comfort, tired of his loneliness in life.

So he flung himself onto Bunny, pale hands clenched tightly, and cried harder, staff forgotten, fresh tears falling from his cheek. What else was there for him to do, this broken child of frost?

When the worst of the sobbing and screaming was over, Bunny gently pushed Jack off and looked at the winter spirit. Jack looked as if he hadn't slept in years (in which he probably _hadn't_), tears brimming in his blue eyes and hands holding onto the staff as if it was a teddy bear.

"H-how long have y-you been here?" It wasn't accusing, nor angry. And that made it all the more worse. "From the start," Bunny managed, after a moment of hesitation. Jack nodded in acknowledgement, but there was silence as he continued to hug his staff.

"Listen, frostbite," Bunny started, wiping Jack's tears off his face before they froze there. "Are ya listening? Good," he said as the winter spirit nodded. "I know it's been tough, an' that we haven't been the most... accepting family." When the expected snarky reply didn't come, Bunny continued, "But we realize that we've made a mistake. An' we have an eternity to make it up. So, will ya let us?"

Jack looked up at him, and the Pooka was reminded of how much of a child Jack really was, behind three hundred years of hiding his pain behind his 'I'm lonely and I need someone but you don't need to know that' smile.

Jack looked away, and for a moment Bunny was afraid that he _wouldn't_ let them. But then, ever so softly, a word escaped the pale lips of the frost child.

"Yes."

And that was it. Rubbing away his tears, Jack stood up, followed by Bunny. "Thanks, kangaroo," he said after a while, his usual smirk returning. Bunny nodded, and there was a silence, but a peaceful one this time.

"Now, 'bout that pink dye you snuck in my shampoo..."

"Wait, it only worked now? I put that there a while ago! No wonder you managed to wash it off so quickly!"

"JAAACK!"

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**I like how this went. Review please!**

**EDIT: Grammar edited.**


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